Microsoft Power BI Reviews

I use Microsoft Power BI for analytics. It is an online service for business intelligence. I use it to analyze every piece of data that I have. My key performance indicators are on Power BI. My sales indicators, such as number of clients, number of sales and region, type of client, type of solution, due to date comparison, and due to year comparison, are really based on the sales of the company. I am using Power BI Pro.

Constant collaboration is the most valuable. I can build a dashboard, and several co-workers can access this dashboard. We can share information that is important for decision-making.

It is a very easy-to-deploy solution. It is compatible with a lot of data sources. It is also very stable and scalable. There is also a very good forum and a lot of help and online training.

I would like them to provide a license that just allows us to see dashboards. What I don't like about this solution is that in order to just watch a dashboard, you need a license. Currently, you need to purchase a full license of Power BI Pro just to see something, which is not attractive. If you have a license, you can see a shared dashboard, but you can also build a dashboard or you can collaborate with other people. However, if you only want to see a dashboard, there is no license for that. I only want to see the dashboard, and I don't want to do anything more than watching the information on the dashboard. There is no license that allows you to see a shared dashboard. This is one of the areas of opportunity because I would like a lot of people to be able to see a shared dashboard, not to interact with it or to collaborate online with it. 

I would like to see more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources. Given the fact that everything is related to Microsoft Azure and all services available on Microsoft Azure, I see that they're building more connections to Microsoft Azure services instead of other non-Microsoft services. I understand the strategy, but it would be good to have more compatibility with non-Microsoft data sources.

It is a very robust and stable solution. We are a company that works with enterprise solutions from SAP and Microsoft. We have worked with companies that have 5,000 users and without a problem. So, it is very robust and stable.

Being a cloud solution, it is very scalable. You can easily scale it based on the usage. If you're using it, you pay for it, and if you're not using it, you stop paying for it.

In our company, Power BI being used by maybe 15 people out of 70. It is a growing solution. Three years ago, we had only five people who were working with Power BI. Now, we are building more and more dashboards for our service desk area, and its usage is growing.

I haven't contacted them. We report everything to our own Service Desk, and they are the ones who scale the problem to the manufacturer. This means that every time that we have important issues, they have to be solved in a very decent period of time by the manufacturer. There is a very good response time, and every time we had problems, they were solved. We didn't have anything pending.

Given the fact that it is on the cloud, it is really easy to deploy. It is only about connecting the engine to your data source and start building the dashboards. You can just connect your data. It doesn't matter if it is on-premises or as a service. You can just connect it.

It is based on the usage. If you're using it, you pay for it, and if you're not using it, you stop paying for it.

If your data source is a Microsoft-based data source, this is the best choice. If you have a data source that is not Microsoft-based and is on a non-Microsoft platform, such as MongoDB or Unix, you should see some solutions like MicroStrategy or Qlik. If you have a pure 100% Microsoft-based data source, Microsoft Power BI is the answer. You can do wonders with Microsoft Power BI. It is a very cool solution.

I would rate Microsoft Power BI a nine out of ten.

We use this solution to analyze financial statements from our partners.

We build dashboards to see information on a product that is offered by one of our local telcos.

The most valuable feature is shareability, where we can publish work to the cloud and share it with team members. If you want to build a dashboard then you can publish it to the cloud, and then add people. This will give them access to the dashboard where they can review it, and modify it as well.

They have a mobile option that allows you to see the dashboard from your mobile phone, rather than having to look at your laptop.

I think that they can add more types of charts because the selection on the desktop version is limited.

I would like to see an option for adding audio to the visualizations. 

They need to add support for putting emojis into the dashboards.

We have been using Power BI for the past two or three years.

In terms of stability, this product has never failed me. I have not experienced any bugs or glitches.

The scalability is good. They allow for multiple types of data sources, so if you grow your databases or you change your data sources, it's easy to add them to the tool visually.

We are a startup with four people, and everybody is using it. We are proposing it to our clients in cases where we are selling analytics because it's a good option for them.

I have not had a reason to speak with technical support, although I've looked at the community. They do have additional features that you can download from the site, as well. I have not a problem in terms of support.

I used Tableau in 2016, but I decided not to use it in this startup company because they don't have a free option. They do have a trial version, but that expires and I would have to then look for another solution.

With Microsoft BI, they have a free desktop version. 

I have also used Cognos BI before, although it was a bit complicated. This is another reason that I settled on Microsoft BI.

The installation is direct and quite easy to do. The instructions are available online and they are easy to follow.`

I completed the deployment myself.

We are using the free desktop version of this product.

Once the trial period for the BI service is over, the cost is approximately $10 USD per user, per month, so it's quite reasonable.

My advice for anybody interested in using Microsoft BI is to set up the desktop version. It's good to start off with, it's easy to learn, and they get the trial period for the BI service. Then, once they're done with the trial period, I think the licensing per month is quite affordable.

In summary, this is a good solution. It is not perfect, although if they added audio, emojis, and more types of graphs, then it would be.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

Using it, I receive financial information from the financial department.

It gives us accurate data and an easy way to navigate.

I get the information I need easily, and it's easy to read.

They should add mobile access.

Stability is okay.

For me it's okay, I don't have any issues with scalability.

The decision to use Microsoft BI was made by the financial department.

I don't have any advice as I am not in a position to recommend it. I am just an end-user, I do not develop, I do not maintain it.

Microsoft BI's most valuable feature is flexibility.

The performance of Microsoft BI could improve for large datasets and it would be beneficial to have more visualization features.

I have been using Microsoft BI for approximately two years.

The solution is stable, but not as good as other tools I use.

Microsoft BI is a scalable solution.

The support of Microsoft BI is good.

Microsoft BI is very cost-effective and this is why we use it.

I rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.

My primary use case is to turn data into analysis.

Areas for improvement would be the construction of reports and the dashboard budget.

The stability is good.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup was complex.

Licenses are available on a monthly basis.

I would rate this solution as nine out of ten.

The stability is good.

It's pretty easy to set up the product.

For the most part, users can scale the solution.

Technical support is okay.

It's a great option if a business is already heavily involved with other Microsoft tools. 

I can't speak to any missing features. We haven't used it that long and I haven't come across anything that's stood out as needing to be fixed. 

I've just started with the solution. I've used it for under a year so far. 

The solution is stable and the performance is pretty good, From what I have experienced. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

That said, we haven't used it for a full year yet, and it's hard to gauge its stability for the long term. Right now, based on the information I have, I'd rate it at 70% stable. 

While, for the most part, it is scalable, it still has its own limitations. 

We have three customers that currently use the product.

We've dealt with technical support in the past. They are okay. I'd describe them as average. We haven't necessarily had a bad experience. 

I wasn't directly involved in the implementation process. From the feedback from the engineers working on it, in terms of if it is an easy installation, t's not that difficult. The difficulty level depends on the experience of whoever is installing. It depends on the experience of the guy behind the installation or the software guy. My understanding is that there is no difficulty region to region. 

We have about five people who can handle deployment and maintenance duties on our team. We have a mix of managers and admins. 

We are able to handle the implementation process for our clients. 

The client does need to pay for a license in order to use the product, however, I can't speak to the exact lengths of license agreements on offer or how much they cost. 

Beyond the standard licensing fees, the only other extra cost would be support. 

There are other options, however, it depends on the client's services. If clients have already made up their minds and they know what they want to go for, we simply help implement. We can give them more options of solutions to choose from. However, many prefer Microsoft as most of their other applications are already Microsoft. It makes sense to stay within the brand. 

I'm an integrator and reseller. 

I'm not the one in charge of the installation or the technicality of the product. I'm more on the business side.

I always let clients have options and guide them to go for the one that best fits what they want to achieve. Other solutions have areas of strengths and weaknesses. You need to look at everything and examine everything before making a decision. 

Currently, I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. We haven't yet used it a year, and we're still learning about it and seeing what works well for clients. Over the next few months, we'll likely have a fuller picture of the product.

I have used Microsoft BI for sales analysis. I've also used it to analyze people. Pretty much across the board, whether it's the number of people, number of dresses, number of hamburgers, number of widgets and then creating the dashboards and the metrics and so forth.

The best feature for me is Power Query. I know that probably sounds strange, but you can't do too much with visuals and reports if the backend stuff is horribly dirty and just bad. But for me, that is absolutely fantastic. I can load the data and do the transformation and be able to load it in a useful way. There are tons of connections, which is absolutely fantastic as well. It's been fairly easy, and it's intuitive.

It would be better if they had some video tutorials. Most people from an Excel background may struggle with measures in Microsoft BI.

I have used Microsoft BI over the last 12 months.

I haven't really had any issues, but I haven't given it the full whammy or the full monty. It's been stable for my use.

The initial setup was easy for me.

I would tell potential users that there are many other tools out there, but I think it's a steep learning curve. For example, Alteryx and Domo, and Trifacta can be difficult to learn unless you have a SQL background. But if you're a Microsoft person, the transition is fairly easy for Microsoft BI. It's intuitive, and I would recommend it from that perspective. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Microsoft BI an eight.